Can I interest you in The Big Issue?

We have all heard the call while walking up or down Middle Meadow Walk. He is instantly recognisable: a man in an orange high-visibility smock wearing sunglasses, a thermos flask in his hand and who, often sat on his walking stick-cum-stool. When I went up to him for the first time, soliciting an interview, he replied warily: "Why?" He has become a part of the Edinburgh landscape, and part of the student experience at the University of Edinburgh and elsewhere. Eventually he concedes, not without a little pride: "I guess everyone knows me."

      He makes it clear that he didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him.

      ‘John’ - "just John" – doesn’t stop working to talk to me, so we’re now and then interrupted by a call of "can I interest you in buying The Big Issue?" He sells The Big Issue magazine— Scotland’s biggest weekly magazine, with a readership of over 170,000—every weekday from 7am to 12pm and has been doing so for three years, ever since he arrived in Edinburgh.

        The Big Issue, which celebrated its 18^th anniversary in September, was launched by Gordon Roddick and A. John Bird in response to the growing number of rough sleepers on the streets of London. They believed that the key to solving the problem of homelessness lay in helping people to help themselves, and were determined to offer a legitimate alternative to begging.  The magazine was inspired by a similar newspaper called Street News in New York and is now read by over 670,000 people every week throughout the UK. Street vendors buy The Big Issue for 75 pence and sell it for £1.50. The Big Issue Foundation, the magazine’s sister charity, helps the sellers gain control of their lives by addressing the causes of their homelessness and currently supports over 2,500 homeless and vulnerably housed people across the country.

      "You have to be homeless to sell it, of course, and you have to get a form signed to confirm that you are homeless. It’s not simple. It’s a real job; if you don’t sell the magazines, you don’t get your money back. They give you free magazines to start with."  Sellers have to sign up to a code of conduct before they can sell the magazine. John doesn’t say how much money he makes; he has got about ten magazines on him today and is hoping to sell them all.

       John reckons it’s the best of the thirty jobs he has had over the past half-century: "I have done so many jobs. I’ve been a butcher, worked in different shops. I was even been an undertaker in a hospital. You name it, I’ve done it. Selling The Big Issue is good. I have a spot, I work here from 7am till 12pm or 1pm. I like it, I wouldn’t do anything else," he explains. He’s stoical about his past; when I ask him about being an undertaker he replies: "It was a dead job."

      After he finishes his shift for the day he buys more magazines to sell the next day. As to where he sleeps at night, he just says: "Here, there and everywhere." When I mention a homeless shelter, he ignores my comment. Testimonies from former Big Issue sellers indicate that many of them prefer to "sleep outside than go to a homeless shelter".

      He’s originally from Cambridge, and his two sons and ex-wife still live there. "I’ve been homeless thirty years, on and off, and over the years I have been all over the place, all over England. My family always wanted to come to Edinburgh so that’s why I’m here. You always hear things about Scots being stingy, but actually they’re generous."

      A student approaches him, calling him by his name. "Hello darling," he greets her. They chat for a few minutes before she buys a copy. She is not the only one. In the few minutes I’ve been speaking to him, four people have waved or stopped to say hello, and she is his third sale in 15 minutes. I get the impression that I might be one of the few students who didn’t know him by name; indeed, the majority of people who stop to talk to John are students.

"The students here are 400 per cent respectable," he replies. "They always acknowledge me one way or another. They are always kind. A lot of people come to talk to me. They just want to have a little chat. I have regulars. There is Peggy, that you just saw. I’ve seen three sets of students come and go. I see them in the morning, with their parents when they come to visit. I mean, I’ve even seen some of them in their robes," he says, bursting out laughing. "I just wish them well."

He even receives Christmas cards from passersby and from his regulars. Does he get birthday cards too? "No, no, no – that’s a secret, no one knows when it is." He says he is 64.

One might imaging that he would have collected a fair number of anecdotes, but John follows a strict work ethic: "I just blank it all out,’ he says; ‘I don’t want to know. I just mind my business and sell my magazines."